Health Ministry postpones presenting integrative hospitals development plan to the parliament to 17 July

Minister of Health Ahmed Emad El-Din intends to present the integrative hospitals development plan to the Health Committee in the House of Representatives on 17 July.

Head of the Health Committee, Magdy Morshed, told Daily News Egypt that the committee is waiting for the actuarial study of the development plan prepared by the Ministry of Health that includes 460 integrative hospitals in various governorates of Egypt.

The ministry postponed presenting the development plan to the House of Representatives to 17 July so that a larger number of members could attend the minister’s presentation.

Morshed said that developing the integrative hospitals through the private sector was confusing and requires further clarification from the Ministry of Health.

He explained that the hospitals are neglected, which increases the pressure on public and central hospitals, of which there are about 200.

Member of parliament Haitham El-Hariri submitted a briefing request to the House of Representatives on the development plan of 75 integrative hospitals, in partnership with the private sector. He described it as the beginning of healthcare privatisation to follow the instructions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB).

Parliamentary sources told Daily News Egypt that the committee will call the Ministry of Health to confine the private sector’s participation in the development process to only management in return for a percentage of the profits.

The private sector percentage of the profits will be negotiated. However, the committee will only approve 49%, they said.

The sources ruled out that the development of one hospital would cost EGP 30m, saying that there are existing medical units and infrastructure that can be developed instead of building new ones. Therefore, the development process will only require EGP 13.8bn, which is already considered a large amount of money.

The healthcare sector’s allocations in the draft budget for the current fiscal year (FY) amount to EGP 74bn. The calculation is based on the gross domestic product of last year that was estimated at EGP 2.7tr.

Morshed said the wages of the healthcare sector’s allocations in the current FY are EGP 39bn, and the rest will be dedicated to development.

He added that the government assigned EGP 9bn as a reserve outside the sector’s allocations to be used in accordance with the declaration of the Ministry of Health’s insurance services development.

The health insurance allocations in the draft budget for current FY year are EGP 8.7bn.